<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Staffers with Vice President Joe Biden confined an Orlando Sentinel reporter in a closet this week to keep him from mingling with high-powered guests gathered for a Democratic fundraiser.

Reporter Scott Powers was the designated "pool reporter" for the vice president's Wednesday visit to the massive Winter Park, Fla., home of developer and philanthropist Alan Ginburg. The veep hadn't arrived yet but most of the 150 guests (minimum $500 donation) had. They were busy noshing on caprese crostini with oven-dried mozzarella and basil, rosemary flatbread with grapes honey and gorgonzola cheese and bacon deviled eggs, before a lunch of grilled chicken Caesar and garden vegetable wraps.

Not so for Powers. A "low-level staffer" put Powers in a storage closet and then stood guard outside the door, he told the DRUDGE REPORT. "When I'd stick my head out, they'd say, 'Not yet. We'll let you know when you can come out.'"

And no crustini for Powers, either. He made do with a bottle of water to sip as he sat at a tiny makeshift desk, right next to a bag marked "consignment." Powers was closeted at about 11:30 a.m., held for about an hour and 15 minutes, came out for 35 minutes of remarks by Biden and Sen. Bill Nelson, Florida Democrat, and then returned to his jail for the remainder of the event.

Powers' phone didn't work in the closet, but his Blackberry did, so he fired out a picture of his impromptu prison to his editors, who posted a short blog item on the lack of freedom of the press under the veep's control.

Powers didn't mention his confinement in either of his pool reports that day, saying only that "press coverage was limited to a single pool reporter, filing on behalf of all local media, who was allowed to listen to the remarks but not given an opportunity to talk with anyone at the event."

On Friday, Powers said, the home's owner called him. "He said he had no idea they'd put me in a closet and was very sorry. He said he was just following their lead and was extremely embarrassed by the whole thing."
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This is where an O-cultist explains that the COTUS guarantees the state to restrict free speech and jail citizen's without cause or due process.

Soflasnapper

03-26-2011, 06:22 PM

Perhaps the reporter should have texted his lawyer to file a brief of habeas corpus?

(How his 'phone' doesn't work, but his 'Blackberry' did, when the Blackberry IS A FREAKING PHONE! isn't explained.)

I support any effort of this reporter or his organization to seek full recompense for this ill treatment, but sadly conclude that there is no cause of action. What would you think it could be? False imprisonment? Kidnapping?

Please. This has nothing to do with 'the regime' or 'the COTUS.' Clearly enough, it was the sole act of a low-level staffer, so far as this evidence goes.

Now, if you said it showed zero respect for 'the PRESS,' maybe we'd have a basis for discussion, although again, you're way off base saying this had to do with his 1st amendment rights, or due process rights.

I don't believe there is any general right of the press to attend fund raisers. I think most of them bar the press outright from attending.

If attendance is allowed, then it can be restricted, and in this case, it was restricted to allowing the reporter to witness and report the remarks of the public officials to that group (and nothing before or after those).

It would have been better to have an actual ROOM where he could be sequestered, instead of a lowly linens closet or whatever it was. But in either case, the restriction of how and what the reporter could see seems entirely legit, neither rising to the level of a crime nor impinging on the 1st amendment rights of the press. Considering there was no requirement that this reporter be allowed in at all.